Posts tagged with #work

Most days end feeling like you didn’t accomplish anything. And you’re not going to accomplish anything tomorrow. And you’re in big trouble cause you’re really stuck. That’s what most days are like for me. But what’s really happening is that during those frustrating days the thinking is going on, even if it doesn’t much feel like it.

In 2012, I helped launch Roads & Kingdoms. The rest of the team did all the hard work: they published the best food/travel/culture writing, they won awards to back up that statement, they brought on Anthony Bourdain as a partner and investor, and now they’re releasing their first book with HarperCollins.

I’m still trying to figure out how the hell Douglas Hughmanick found the time to design every stunning page of this book — in between buying a house, having his first child and growing a successful design agency. Doug, whatever unholy scheme you’re taking part in to obtain unlimited energy… I want in.

There’s a lot that happens with collaboration in movies and TV that is phenomenal. But at the same time, there’s some perfecting that goes with it. You all get together and work on stuff and make it perfect, but sometimes perfect looks the same as other perfect. [...] When you write from your gut and let the stuff stay flawed and don’t let anybody tell you to make it better, it can end up looking like nothing else.

You know the cliché: You’re out on the town, you’re doing drugs, you’re drinking, you’re running on the walls, you’re pissing on the fireplace. It’s a cliché. Often you run into artists who live that life—and at one point, you find out that they’re not actually producing that much art. They’re living the life of the artist without the work.

We have a paradox about progress: many people complain about how stuck in the past their organizations are, yet point to the lack of adoption of remote work as an indicator of it’s uselessnesses, rather than a reflection of their organization’s fearful grip on the status quo.

Part of my testiness is that I feel I make 50 compromises a day. When people come to me and say, ‘Why can’t you compromise?’ I’m like: ‘What are you talking about? The fact that we’re having this conversation means that we’ve compromised.’

Errands are so effective at killing great projects that a lot of people use them for that purpose. Someone who has decided to write a novel, for example, will suddenly find that the house needs cleaning. People who fail to write novels don’t do it by sitting in front of a blank page for days without writing anything. They do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for coffee, checking email. “I don’t have time to work,” they say. And they don’t; they’ve made sure of that.

What’s important is spending a thousand hours to learn a new skill that will really help you in your life or work. What’s important is giving your full undistracted attention to the important people in your life. What’s important is taking time to get exercise, or to collect and share what you’ve learned.

But none of these things will ever be urgent.

So you have to ignore the tempting cries of the urgent, and deliberately choose what you know is important.